1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processing of substrate and, more particularly, to an assembly of a vertically arranged load lock and substrate transport robot assembly.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,562,383 and 5,882,413 disclose different types of substrate processing apparatus. It is known in the art to provide a substrate transport robot between a station holding a cassette of substrates and a load lock into a main transfer chamber of the substrate processing apparatus. A problem with this type of arrangement is that the footprint is relatively large because the cassette holding station, substrate transport robot and load lock are arranged in series along a horizontal plane.